CubeZombie

Not much going on as far as travelling atm…And honestly I don’t really like riding in this heat..Since I wear jacket, gloves, full face, and boots everytime I get on the bike it can get a bit warm…Also been busy with work and life…I have recently upgraded my digital camera from a Nikon point and shoot to a Canon Digital Rebel XT. It was actually Kate’s old camera and she upgraded to Nikon D60.

I’ve really enjoyed messing around with the camera..So much so that I’ve setup a couple of online galleries to put these photos in…I still have my hosted gallery but honestly I’m getting tired of keeping it running…I’ll keep it going but I probably won’t add anything new to it.

The galleries:

Smug Mug – I only have a 14 day trial atm but I’ll probably go ahead and get a year which is usually 39 bucks but I used a coupon from another site I frequent and got 5 bucks off it if I choose to get a member ship. These are mostly just random shots I’ve been taking lately.

I tend to want to have some music playing when I ride. As it’s been discussed in a couple of forums I read the opinions are pretty much divided. Some feel that it’s a distraction and others love it. Some think that it’s an abomination to listen to anything other than the bike and the wind..Whatever..If i’m in the mood for music I listen to music..If not I don’t…Pretty simple..For those times when i’m in the mood I use my SanDisk Sansa. It only came with 1G of space but it has a slot for a microSD card which I had a spare 1G card..So 2G of music is plenty for the commute. The biggest selling point of this player for me is that it can get FM. So I can get traffic and the morning show I like to listen to on the way to work.

Another selling point is that it “just works” under Linux. I don’t need a gui or any special software to put mp3’s on it..I plug it in, it gets picked up as a removable storage drive and I just move the mp3’s I want into the Music folder. Simple eh? All of this functionality and it’s no bigger than a normal usb drive:

Anyone who knows me knows that I love gadgets…I have a camping laptop for godsake. You read that correctly. I have a laptop that I specifically bought to take camping. It’s not waterproof but it does have a solid state drive so it can stand to be bumped around a bit.

In searching through some forums I frequent I came across the SPOT Messenger. This little gadget is basically a GPS unit that doesn’t give you directions but instead sends your location by text message,email or both to people who care about you. It works where cell phones don’t and also has a 911 feature that sends an emergency message to a monitoring station which in turn relays the GPS coordinates to local emergency services so they can respond to your location. It also has a “Help” feature. This is basically 911 without the police/EMS responding. On their website you designate up to 10 people that will get your check-in and help messages.

Another cool feature of this unit is the tracking mode. This sends a message to the monitoring station every 10 minutes which is then plotted on Google Maps. You can then share this page out so people can track your location. Right now I have 2 shared pages

This blog will also get an email from SPOT when I check in. Right now it will only be in text with my GPS coordinates and a link to Google Maps. I’m trying to figure out a way to render the map itself without the cruft. That will probably be something to work on later. Those posts will be added to the SPOT category.

I’ve had a lot of fun testing this thing out and I really hope it lives up to my expectations once I’m on the road.